A hospital ward has been quarantined after 5 people fell ill with mysterious hallucinations

An emergency room in Oregon has been quarantined after five
people started experiencing hallucinations that appear to have
been spread via touch.

The unidentified condition was first reported at around 3am last
Wednesday, when a 54-year-old caregiver in North Bend, Oregon,
phoned police complaining about seven or eight people trying to
"take the roof off her vehicle".

Police investigated her house and couldn't find any evidence of
the crime, but when the caregiver called about the incident again
a few hours later, two Sheriff's deputies escorted her to the
nearby Bay Area hospital to be examined for symptoms of
hallucinations.

The woman was declared healthy and sent home, but pretty soon,
one of the deputies who'd helped out with the case started
hallucinating himself.

And then the second deputy, a hospital worker, and the
caregiver's 78-year-old patient also began hallucinating, and
were admitted to hospital.

All four had been in physical contact with the caregiver.

A Haz Mat team was deployed to both the hospital and the
caregiver's residence, while the emergency room was emptied and
quarantined to check for the source of the unidentified illness.
Experts have so far been unable to locate a common source of
contamination.

Blood tests of the affected patients also haven't turned up
anything unusual.

Initially, police though that the hallucinations could have been
caused by narcotic fentanyl patches, which are prescribed for
chronic pain, and were worn by the caregiver's 78-year-old
patient.

But they've since ruled that explanation out.

"Investigation has found that all those patches and potential
medications that may have caused the symptoms have been accounted
for," Coos County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Patrick Downing
told KVAL
News.

"The vehicles, equipment, and uniforms have been checked with no
contaminates identified or located on or about them."

All patients have now been treated, released home, and have
reportedly recovered — although the hospital worker is displaying
some flu-like symptoms. The quarantine has
also been lifted from the hospital.

But the investigation into the source of the hallucinations is
ongoing, with police saying that the only thing they suspect for
sure is that the illness was spread by direct contact.

However, it's not yet been ruled out that this isn't a case of
mass hysteria — where many people in contact
with each other all start to think they're suffering from the
same physical condition, symptoms, or threat. It's possible that
all these people who came in contact with the caregiver became so
anxious that they also started hallucinating.

This is not the first time a mysterious illness has swept through
a group of people, either — last year, dozens of children started fainting
during a Remembrance Day ceremony in the UK. In that case, the
suspected cause appears to have been a simple been a case of
heating and widespread panic about children becoming ill.